ultimately the point is that progressive and leftist and anti-oppressive circles are just as vulnerable to disinformation and propagandism as any other groups, and russian authorities manipulating american social media to influence voters is not a silly conspiracy theory but a substantiated fact which we are still in the process of fully exposing, and rather than decry this whole phenomenon as just tumblr staff being stupid, this is a good opportunity for all of us to think really critically about what content we share and why, and ask ourselves how we can ensure that the sources we’re sharing from are trustworthy and truthful
These Russian operations have been all over Eastern European social media since 2014, so it’s not like this is unprecedented. They target people on the left, on the right, and in the middle, white people, black people, it doesn’t matter. The only color that really matters to them is the color of Putin’s money. We’re not the first targets and we won’t be the last, so we need to get smarter about this.
when I was in high school (2011 or thereabouts), I was part of a forum for fans of a particular webcomic (coughcough @discordcomics coughcough). because the webcomic was about queer people, almost everyone in the forum was some kind of queer. I learned like 90% of my queer politics through being a member and interacting with trans folks and ace folks and nonbinary folks and what have you all the time.
we had a section for cool queer news stories, and one day someone posted a link to a blog. it was written by a lesbian in Syria, and the post that was shared was her recounting how the night before, the secret police had come to take her away for being a lesbian, but her father had identified each of the men by name (like, “Don’t I know you from —?” and “Isn’t your father so-and-so?”), shaming them into leaving her alone. it was a heartwarming story, a really important bright spot for us queer folks (a Muslim dad! in Syria! standing up for his lesbian daughter!), and so when she was apparently kidnapped in broad daylight by armed men, the internet (including us!) freaked out and tried to search for her.
now, according to him, he was trying to uplift the voices of Muslims (particularly Muslim women) who he’d met while studying. people were spreading misinformation about the Middle East and Muslims on the internet, and he wasn’t being listened to as a straight white man, and so he thought his opinions might be given more weight if they came from a Muslim lesbian woman.
the problem is, even if what he said was 100% accurate–even if he had so deeply studied the plight of women, particularly lesbians, in Syria, that no actual Syrian Muslim lesbian would disagree with him–the problem is that he’s not a Syrian Muslim lesbian. he’s a white guy from Georgia. he could do nothing but parrot talking points by actual queer Syrians all day and that would never give him the experience or knowledge to be able to speak for them.
the problem isn’t that the deleted blogs promoted ideas from BLM and other social justice groups. lots of people can do that, even if they’re not black or not American. even I can do that. but one thing I can’t do, as a white woman, is to pretend that I am black–to steal photos of real black people to use as my profile pics, to use AAVE exclusively, to talk about how “our” people are oppressed and hurt by white supremacy–even if it’s to promote goals that I agree with. that’s rachel dolezal levels of fuckery. or, more accurately, this is hivliving levels of fuckery.
imagine this wasn’t the IRA. imagine it was a bunch of white kids from spokane, or any one of the police officers who blame BLM for self-inflicted wounds and vandalism, or cole fucking sprouse. would we still be saying “but they made good points”? would we still be defending them as martyrs to tumblr’s censorship? would we claim them as legitimate social justice activists, instead of frauds who duped innocent people into believing they were members of marginalized groups?
“would we still be saying “but they made good points”? would we still be defending them as martyrs to tumblr’s censorship? would we claim them as legitimate social justice activists, instead of frauds who duped innocent people into believing they were members of marginalized groups?“
Wait… people are actually doing this? They do know why Russians have bots doing this stuff, right? This isn’t like… people trying to promote social justice causes for their own sake. This has a way more cynical political purpose.
I mean, I knew a lot of people on Tumblr were a bit thick in the head, but… Damn.
To be fair, the U.S. has a long and storied history of accusing genuine leftists (particularly black activists, like the Black Panthers) of being Russian shills and silencing them on that basis. It is completely understandable that leftists would assume that this is more of the same.
Except that this is more like COINTELPRO: a government infiltrating an organization and using that position in the organization to spread chaos and divide ranks. I cannot believe that people are ignoring that the tactics the IRA has been using are exactly like those used by the FBI, except that it’s the Russian government and not the American one.
I’m not even surprised that this has been the response by some people, I know waaaaaay too many lefties who still think RT is a brave news network willing to fight for what’s right.
Of course you don’t. Free college might hinder the school-to-prison pipeline your prison owning donors depend on
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
welp;
Actual quote, in context:
“I believe that we should make community college free. We should have debt-free college if you got to a public college or university. You should not have to borrow a dime to pay tuition… I disagree with free college for everybody. I don’t think taxpayers should be paying to send Donald Trump’s kids to college.“
Don’t spread misinformation just to fit a narrative, Clinton is advocating for there to be a cap on who gets free college so that the government doesn’t have to subsidize the education of people with enough disposable income to pay for it themselves. The plan she’s proposing would have a better chance of being passed, is more cost-effective, and still opens up higher education to low-income individuals who previously couldn’t afford it.
the op lagonegirl literally ended up being a russian psyop im losing my mind
Reblogging this as an example of what the Russian interference here on tumblr was. I have seen some people in the past days casting doubts on Tumblr because the blogs that were banned had social justice content.
But that was the point exactly. They posted some real things and a lot of half-truths that would appealto the kind of politics on here and therefore spread disinformation to discourage us from participating in stopping Trump through the only option we had. I’m glad tumblr left these posts up so we could see for ourselves.
I don’t know if it actually worked on anyone, I hope we all remember to check our sources before making our decisions, but life is short and maybe some people didn’t. There are plenty of real social justice blogs available still, so I hope we will follow those instead.
Holly Maniatty, a certified sign language interpreter upstaged hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg with her enthusiasm during his concert at the Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Maniatty has worked numerous festivals and concerts with well-known rappers including Beastie Boys, Wu-Tang Clan and Killer Mike and this isn’t the first time that she has stolen the show with her major skills.
This looks like some special type of sign language that assists people with understanding the beats and innuendo along with lyrics.
Snoop Dogg made the right choice!
I thought this was so cool and exciting that I went and learned more about the interpreter here: http://www.thestory.org/transcript-interview-holly-maniatty-interpreter-wu-tang-clan it’s really cool how she spends so much time studying the music so that she can express the performer’s personality and intent. She also tries to make jokes/innuendo work, which is why she’s using a lot of extra expressions, and she is using her body to express important parts of the beat. There’s a bit where she “invites (signed) applause” that works really well with the music. Idk, I don’t know enough about signing to really comment on this, but it strikes me that she’s getting a lot of information into her performance.
One bizarre thing I noticed was how all the outlets reporting on Maniatty’s gone-viral performance was the language they used to describe it. They say she “upstaged” Snoop Dogg, that she “out G’ed him” or “stole the show,” and I think they all profoundly missed the point, even if the word choices were subconscious. Look at the OP for this post, it says she “upstaged” him and regularly “steals” the attention. It’s not like she’s a random dancer or attention seeker: she’s hired by the performers to make their performance accessible! This is her job, and she was specifically chosen and invited by the performer to be there. She isn’t stealing the show, she is charged with making it accessible to a Deaf and HoH audience.
And instead of a literal translation of the lyrics (which often doesn’t really work with hip-hop, because a lot of the cleverness/entertainment is in secondary meanings and rhythm) she’s trying to express the intention. I bet the performers who choose her are super glad they did, since she studies them so carefully, and tries to put their stage personalities across in sign! So many more of their fans are getting their money’s worth! She’s not doing it for parody, she’s doing it to serve the audience. If she was a threat to the performance, if the value she’s adding is distracting or “upstaging,” then PEOPLE WOULD USE A LYRIC MARQUEE INSTEAD. Basically live closed-captioning for events. But they don’t, because the whole-body human interpretation is what actually transmits the meaning, and artists want the audience to appreciate then meaning.
So it’s very weird to see so much language in these articles/posts crowing about how this (brilliant, master-of-her-craft) white woman “stole” the show and “did better at it” than Snoop Dogg. A lot of weird intersectional stuff to think about there.
(I’m totally overthinking this, the video is SUCH good fun though! It makes ONE WHOLE exciting performance!!! and we are so lucky to live in a world where there are people who care about making music accessible!
Here’s another Russian prop post I rebloggged. (OP, not the commentary.)
I remember that I added this commentary out of boiling annoyance, but tried to do so in a productive way. I think it’s actually quite interesting in light of the OP being an alleged Russian propagandist, and it being a pretty good example of steering a conversation.
See how the criticism is bracketed with a friendly start that recognizes the good points of the post, and ends with a self-deprecating and positive ending for people to reblog from? That’s my favorite way to offer critique, because it raises the level of the conversation, keeps the OP in good faith, but still points out the flaws; the OP can’t really say that you’re being nasty and hateful and singling them out personally, if you sympathetically agree that they’ve done the best job that they could.
And it deliberately changes the direction: from the negative narrative of one performer “upstaging” another, to the positive “two performers creating a unified performance.” So the OP can’t really argue: they’ve been wrapped up and redirected, and they either have to ignore me or agree with me.
Obviously, I can’t claim that this was a long-term political plot, I just did this because those two words (”upstage”/”stole”) in the OP annoyed me viscerally, and I am very pedantic and mischievous.
I have decided not to delete this, even though it’s from an alleged Russian propagandist deliberately destroying the mechanism of democracy by encouraging Leftist Millennial Nihilism ™, because I think this is actually an interesting example of how critical engagement and discussion can change the conversation a little bit.
So, I too received the “We’re not mad you reblogged Russian propagandists, we’re just disappointed” email from Tumblr. As per @copperbadge‘s suggestion, I searched for the posts by typing the usernames into “paxpinnae.tumblr.com/search/RussianTrollGoesHere” (Note that you have to have Tumblr search enabled in your profile to do this, but that’s a quick fix.)
Now, I’ve deleted all the posts, because better safe than inadvertently complicit in undermining American democracy, but for those who are interested, this is the quality content the Russian IRA was putting out:
That post with the Google results showing the Obamas as the President and First Lady and saying “reblog this it’s the last day they’re true.”
A post bitching about how Howard the Duck might be getting a(nother) Marvel movie before Kamala Khan, America Chavez, or Miles Morales saying “When Marvel would rather make a movie about a duck than a person of color.”
A post with a Twitter screenshot of a guy saying feminists don’t have loving dads and getting dragged for it.
A post about Imran Yousef, the marine vet bouncer at Pulse in Orlando who helped save people, which actually was a twofor on Russian trolls, with one reblogging the other to give an assist.
That post about Hillary Clinton’s interview where she says she keeps hot sauce in her back, which the troll framed as “admitting to pandering to black people.”
A post promoting Solomon’s Shield, an app that will give you your rights during a traffic stop and help you livestream the stop to Facebook and urging me to “OMG STOP POLICE BRUTALITY!!!!!”
A post about some A+ queer moments from Betty & Veronica with the caption “heteros explain this” that I’m actually really mad about deleting because it was GR8.
A post with a bumper sticker reading “Proud Parent of a Child who has Resisted His Teachers’ Attempts to Break His Spirit and Bend Him to the Will of His Corporate Masters” which I am also really mad that I had to delete.
There are a few trends I noticed as I went through the posts that I want to take a moment to highlight, for the sake of my own critical thinking skills as well as others’:
Most of these posts seemed to come from a standard Tumblr left-wing point of view… BUT:
Most of them ALSO promoted a defeatist attitude toward our current systems and cultures. “Why is no one talking about Imran Yousef?” “You know why.” “Just admit you don’t want equality for all”
The fundamental goal of the Russian propaganda machine is to undermine Americans’ faith in our political and cultural institutions. If everything is inherently terrible, how can we fix it? If both sides are equally bad and corrupt, then it’s better just to give up on government and try to live as best we can.
Which is an interesting take, but a few counterpoints:
No.
Fuck that.
American democracy has many problems, but the solution isn’t to give up; it’s to fight harder.
Change is slow and hard and yes, involves compromise, and doing a few things that you don’t like in the short term, and talking to people who you personally disagree with, and that’s okay! If you continually subject everything to a rigid test of moral purity, the world will always fail you, but if you approach things with an attitude that even people with whom you disagree can have valid points, you might find something good.
(I’m still mad about how good that Betty & Veronica post was. I mean, I know it was probably intended to undercut American culture somehow, but that thing was AMAZING.)
Part of the real punch to the guts here is that:
1) The things they point out aren’t *wrong*. We ARE a racist society. We ARE a a sexist society. We ARE a deeply hetero-normative society. Insert a justice problem, and it probably applies.
2) It’s super easy to agree with and promote the defeatist attitude because these are giant systemic problems it’s super easy to feel defeated by.
3) I fully expect to be hoodwinked by more such accounts in the future. Just look at how tumblr people and people of a certain age talk all fatalistic about the future, how we make our depression and low expectations for our lives into jokes. You can try to be more aware about WHO you’re reblogging, but you’re gonna make a mistake on that someday, not cause you’re an idiot, but cause it’s just that hard not to.
So what to do about it?
Do like Pax and use the tips from @copperbadge to delete the posts you’ve reblogged. Then, in the future, if you see a post that, per @paxpinnae‘s comments, takes a defeatist stance towards a real problem, by all means, reblog it. But add to the post – add a call to action. If it’s about trans bathroom bills, include a form letter for your state reps. Do something similar if it’s about lack of representation in the media – why not send emails to movie studios saying we want Miles Morales and Kamala Khan cause they’re fucking rad as hell and could totally bring in Black Panther $$$. If it’s about police brutality against black people, link to BLM fundraisers.
That way, you’re being civically engaged. You roll your eyes and feel sad about the ways in which our world is shit, but then you do something about it, even IF it seems small and useless. It’s still something, and then you’re maybe – hopefully – perhaps inspiring someone else to take incremental action along with you. And bonus, you’re undermining some asshole’s attempt to undermine you, so if nothing else, you’re getting spite points.
And that’s my thought. Time to do some research and gather rebloggable resources so I can do my best to put my money where my mouth is here.
I did not plan to mire myself this deeply in this whole event when I made An Humorous Post about being in league with Russian agitators, but it has led to some really awesome analysis that I wanted to share with everyone, so this is well worth reading. Thanks for tagging me, guys!
Incidentally, here’s a bit of HTML you can use to search your blog for these. I’m not deleting the ones I commented on, but when I searched I found 6 posts from 6 different blogs that I’d reblogged:
A photoset of Overwatch dog cosplay, taken from a cosplayer on Twitter and Instagram. (Here it is at the source, so you can have a well-dressed shibe before you continue reading this post.)
This post about the artist who did a famous portrait of Dwight Eisenhower, falsely claiming she was never credited. Note @jumpingjacktrash’s extremely salient commentary: “it feels to me like these posts that claim black artists in history were
less respected than they actually were achieves the opposite of their
intent. it belittles the artists rather than inspiring people to give
them more credit. and it’s pretty demoralizing, isn’t it, to paint a
picture of obscurity and disrespect as the only think black artists have
ever achieved?” yeah, uh, turns out that’s exactly what they were aiming for.
Almost all of this content was reposted, mostly from Twitter. We’ve got a post clearly made to reel in followers with the combo of “cute animal” + “popular fandom”, some fairly reasonable commentary that happens to dovetail well with the message of “everyone is out to get you and no one respects you,” rage-clickbait that’s presented as being about race when there’s no special indication it is, anti-intellectual reframing of a college student’s cool science project as a Decadent Evil of Capitalism, and malicious erasure of a black artist’s legacy to feed into a narrative of hopelessness.
They did a really good job blending in. I would never have guessed any of these was someone deliberately spinning a narrative if I didn’t know already know, and where they do distort things, it’s within the bounds of plausibility, not something where you can clearly say “this person had to be a deliberate and malicious liar.”
I think some people don’t know what a “psyop” is and are like…reflexively objecting to the idea that a Russian psyop A.) happened, or B.) worked and people disbelieve it which is also how you know it was successful.
a psyop is a psychological operation. It’s a tactic, usually from a government, enacted upon a group of individuals (of varying sizes, kinds, etc).
I don’t see anything wrong with looking at wiki’s definition of what a US PsyOp is defined as:
planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
People seem to mistakenly believe that people (buzzfeed?) is claiming that Black Lives Matter was a Russian Psyop. That’s not the case (not in the Buzzfeed article, and not seriously anywhere I’ve seen).
RATHER, it seems that the Russian PSYOP targeted BLM. BLM is not the psyop itself. The psyop just happened to target that movement (as well as other social justice/liberal movements).
The people who seem to object to the idea that this was a Russian psyop are also often reasoning this can’t be a Psyop because…the CIA/FBI successfully infiltrated liberal movements (particularly Black-led ones) before?
Historically, our very own government used psyop and infiltration tactics to do the exact same thing to similar US populations that people are uncovering about Russia. Seeing people claim that this whole psyop thing is “people are saying BLM is a Russian Psyop!!” is like people trying to say “they claimed the Black Panthers was a CIA/FBI psyop!!!”
When the reality is that the psyops/infiltration targeted BLM, or targeted the Black Panthers. It seems…really important that people know that! and it’s like…i keep seeing the SAME people who seem aware the FBI/CIA fucked over groups in the civil rights movements ALSO deny these bloggers were Russian psyops which is weird?? Both things can be true.
This isn’t an accident, it’s super intentional. The whole point is to choose a group of people to target to influence, then assimilate into said community, and then influence or undermine it. It’s effective if you choose a group which is marginalized. It’s more effective if that group would stand to lose something by being publicly undermined. It’s really effective when the end result is a lot of people going “calling this a psyop is a psyop! It’s not their government undermining us, it’s our government doing that.”
Eliciting that response is tactically clever, because you aren’t even wrong for criticizing our government, but also you become complicit in covering up the tracks of the original [outside] influence because you are more willing to blame whatever would normally be the cause of the problem.
Alright I’m just going to add a few things, especially because of this:
This is part of a much larger ongoing Federal investigation. Tumblr delayed on acting on this for months, and in the end seems to have “found only 84 IRA blogs.”
Now “evidence” is presumably how these blogs were proven to be Russian. It seems that Tumblr just cross-referenced already identified IRA backed usernames and IP addresses. We know that platforms like Twitter, Youtube, Google, and Facebook ALL were impacted by this. We had federal court hearings about it:
In September [2017], Facebook acknowledged that it had discovered 3,000 ads from 470 accounts connected to Internet Research Agency. It’s since revealed that those accounts collectively created 80,000 pieces of content that may have been shared, both organically and through ads, with 126 million people. It shared that information with Twitter and Google. Now Twitter says it has identified 2,752 accounts linked to Internet Research Agency, while Google says it has identified 18 YouTube channels connected to the group.
So just from this, we have 470 facebook accounts, 2,752 twitter accounts, and 18 youtube channels. Now we have also identified about 84 tumblr accounts. I don’t think this number is particularly low, nor do I think it’s very high either. I do think that tumblr did the bare minimum of identifying and purging IRA run blogs already identified under federal investigation. I don’t believe tumblr did any original investigation work, and instead simply cleared our already known and identified foreign actors. But that’s my personal belief, not a stated fact.
At any rate, this has been a work in progress for years:
In April 2014, the IRA created a new unit, known as the Translator Project, that focused on “the US population and conducted operations on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,” according to the indictment. By the following month, the project outlined, apparently in an internal document, an explicit goal: “Spread distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general.”
So we have documentation of the goal, we know the IRA itself exists, we’ve had federal investigations about Russian interference in the election, and we know the means with which they interfered (social media.).
Also let’s be clear here: Tumblr didn’t do this out of the kindness of their hearts, a particular political belief, or because they care more about faux-BLM supporting accounts than they do deleting real life Nazis. They did it because the federal government compelled them to help a larger investigation.
The blogging platform Tumblr has unmasked 84 accounts that it says were used by a shadowy Russian internet group to spread disinformation during the 2016 US election campaign.
Tumblr said it uncovered the scheme in late 2017, helping an investigation that led to the indictment in February of 13 individuals linked to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA).
By the way, this wasn’t just a couple of fake accounts, some of these people stole the social security numbers of living Americans, then opened accounts with paypal. They had fake IDs, stolen SSNs, paypal accounts, fake lives. They also hired actual American citizens to do a variety of different things for photo ops. We also have proof because Russian actors in the IRA admitted they got caught and were doing this.
There’s one more thing, which I think is also confusing or bothering people.
Question:why did these accounts spend time being largely pro-liberal/leftist movements?
Answer: across all media platforms? They didn’t. They were spread across all “sides.” Their goal was not simply electing Trump or being conservative, their goal was to spread distrust in the system and undermine the election process. Then to sow discord. They weren’t all left or all right. They were everything, with the intent to cause conflict.
Burr, the committee chair, highlighted two Facebook posts from a Russian propaganda group called Internet Research Agency that created a conflict on the streets of Houston by drawing two groups of protestors to fake “rallies” at the same place and time. One post, shared by the fake Facebook page Heart of Texas, promoted a purported protest against the “Islamization of Texas.” The second post, uploaded by the fake page United Muslims of America, promoted an event aimed at saving “Islamic knowledge.” Both groups bought ads to publicize their events, spending about $200 in total.
Burr then showed images of the resulting clash outside the Islamic Center in Houston, dramatizing how fake accounts can produce real conflict. Skeptics of the impact of Russian meddling in the US election have argued that just because Russia endeavored to influence American voters doesn’t mean they did. But the fact that people showed up for these protests, designed to foment anger on both sides, demonstrates that influence.
So a few people have suggested that the tumblr accounts would sometimes say inflammatory things like talking about white genocide, or hating the whites, or whatever else, and then the IRA would then turn around and use their own posts and spread that information to 4chan and reddit to stir up more anger from neonazis and white supremacists.
I don’t have actual proof of that specific thing happening on hand, but it is very much in line with other actions the IRA took in this psyop, so I find it very reasonable. Tumblr was probably not a main point of actual influence action, but rather a place to disseminate extra “proof” of whatever angle or information they were trying to promote.
People here actually think tumblr chose to ban those accounts because they were going through every social justice tumblr and thought “this is just too subversive, it must be Russian.” They were banned because their IP addresses were from confirmed Russian troll farms.
Where are you getting this information? Because I’ve seen dozens of posts from people complaining that long time bloggers they followed and at least one person who was banned who wasn’t even Russian showing posts from their blogs and they’re largely BLM-related or criticizing Clinton. Where’s the evidence they’re Russian troll farms?
They…they didn’t claim to be Russian on the blogs. The anti-Clinton posts were the point of the propaganda. That’s why they were doing it. The BLM-related things were to gain credibility, which clearly worked, because here you are saying that they couldn’t have been Russian trolls because of those posts. It’s incredible how effective this was.
So, I too received the “We’re not mad you reblogged Russian propagandists, we’re just disappointed” email from Tumblr. As per @copperbadge‘s suggestion, I searched for the posts by typing the usernames into “paxpinnae.tumblr.com/search/RussianTrollGoesHere” (Note that you have to have Tumblr search enabled in your profile to do this, but that’s a quick fix.)
Now, I’ve deleted all the posts, because better safe than inadvertently complicit in undermining American democracy, but for those who are interested, this is the quality content the Russian IRA was putting out:
That post with the Google results showing the Obamas as the President and First Lady and saying “reblog this it’s the last day they’re true.”
A post bitching about how Howard the Duck might be getting a(nother) Marvel movie before Kamala Khan, America Chavez, or Miles Morales saying “When Marvel would rather make a movie about a duck than a person of color.”
A post with a Twitter screenshot of a guy saying feminists don’t have loving dads and getting dragged for it.
A post about Imran Yousef, the marine vet bouncer at Pulse in Orlando who helped save people, which actually was a twofor on Russian trolls, with one reblogging the other to give an assist.
That post about Hillary Clinton’s interview where she says she keeps hot sauce in her back, which the troll framed as “admitting to pandering to black people.”
A post promoting Solomon’s Shield, an app that will give you your rights during a traffic stop and help you livestream the stop to Facebook and urging me to “OMG STOP POLICE BRUTALITY!!!!!”
A post about some A+ queer moments from Betty & Veronica with the caption “heteros explain this” that I’m actually really mad about deleting because it was GR8.
A post with a bumper sticker reading “Proud Parent of a Child who has Resisted His Teachers’ Attempts to Break His Spirit and Bend Him to the Will of His Corporate Masters” which I am also really mad that I had to delete.
There are a few trends I noticed as I went through the posts that I want to take a moment to highlight, for the sake of my own critical thinking skills as well as others’:
Most of these posts seemed to come from a standard Tumblr left-wing point of view… BUT:
Most of them ALSO promoted a defeatist attitude toward our current systems and cultures. “Why is no one talking about Imran Yousef?” “You know why.” “Just admit you don’t want equality for all”
The fundamental goal of the Russian propaganda machine is to undermine Americans’ faith in our political and cultural institutions. If everything is inherently terrible, how can we fix it? If both sides are equally bad and corrupt, then it’s better just to give up on government and try to live as best we can.
Which is an interesting take, but a few counterpoints:
No.
Fuck that.
American democracy has many problems, but the solution isn’t to give up; it’s to fight harder.
Change is slow and hard and yes, involves compromise, and doing a few things that you don’t like in the short term, and talking to people who you personally disagree with, and that’s okay! If you continually subject everything to a rigid test of moral purity, the world will always fail you, but if you approach things with an attitude that even people with whom you disagree can have valid points, you might find something good.
(I’m still mad about how good that Betty & Veronica post was. I mean, I know it was probably intended to undercut American culture somehow, but that thing was AMAZING.)
Part of the real punch to the guts here is that:
1) The things they point out aren’t *wrong*. We ARE a racist society. We ARE a a sexist society. We ARE a deeply hetero-normative society. Insert a justice problem, and it probably applies.
2) It’s super easy to agree with and promote the defeatist attitude because these are giant systemic problems it’s super easy to feel defeated by.
3) I fully expect to be hoodwinked by more such accounts in the future. Just look at how tumblr people and people of a certain age talk all fatalistic about the future, how we make our depression and low expectations for our lives into jokes. You can try to be more aware about WHO you’re reblogging, but you’re gonna make a mistake on that someday, not cause you’re an idiot, but cause it’s just that hard not to.
So what to do about it?
Do like Pax and use the tips from @copperbadge to delete the posts you’ve reblogged. Then, in the future, if you see a post that, per @paxpinnae‘s comments, takes a defeatist stance towards a real problem, by all means, reblog it. But add to the post – add a call to action. If it’s about trans bathroom bills, include a form letter for your state reps. Do something similar if it’s about lack of representation in the media – why not send emails to movie studios saying we want Miles Morales and Kamala Khan cause they’re fucking rad as hell and could totally bring in Black Panther $$$. If it’s about police brutality against black people, link to BLM fundraisers.
That way, you’re being civically engaged. You roll your eyes and feel sad about the ways in which our world is shit, but then you do something about it, even IF it seems small and useless. It’s still something, and then you’re maybe – hopefully – perhaps inspiring someone else to take incremental action along with you. And bonus, you’re undermining some asshole’s attempt to undermine you, so if nothing else, you’re getting spite points.
And that’s my thought. Time to do some research and gather rebloggable resources so I can do my best to put my money where my mouth is here.
I did not plan to mire myself this deeply in this whole event when I made An Humorous Post about being in league with Russian agitators, but it has led to some really awesome analysis that I wanted to share with everyone, so this is well worth reading. Thanks for tagging me, guys!
Of course you don’t. Free college might hinder the school-to-prison pipeline your prison owning donors depend on
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welp;
Actual quote, in context:
“I believe that we should make community college free. We should have debt-free college if you got to a public college or university. You should not have to borrow a dime to pay tuition… I disagree with free college for everybody. I don’t think taxpayers should be paying to send Donald Trump’s kids to college.“
Don’t spread misinformation just to fit a narrative, Clinton is advocating for there to be a cap on who gets free college so that the government doesn’t have to subsidize the education of people with enough disposable income to pay for it themselves. The plan she’s proposing would have a better chance of being passed, is more cost-effective, and still opens up higher education to low-income individuals who previously couldn’t afford it.
the op lagonegirl literally ended up being a russian psyop im losing my mind
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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